It is impossible to brush aside the signs of weakness in the American economy. Friday’s employment data were a shock, suggesting that the recovery is faltering, despite flickers of news to the contrary. Combined with the brinkmanship in Congress over the debt ceiling, it raises new questions about

The lights are dim in the corridors of Japan’s government ministries, to save electricity, and the towering walls of neon in the Akihabara electronics district have dark gaps in their façades. But three months after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11 — which Japan refers to as its “3/11” — the

The lights are dim in the corridors of Japan’s government ministries, to save electricity, and the towering walls of neon in the Akihabara electronics district have dark gaps in their façades. But three months after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11 — which Japan refers to as its “3/11” — the

It might seem odd to see progress amid the wreckage of the Doha trade talks, which have been going on for a decade without resolution and now face a version of collapse. But a decade of argument has teased out a few strands of agreement. It is just possible that those can be woven together in a

It is not too late to appoint Tharman Shanmugaratnam as the next head of the International Monetary Fund. The Finance Minister of Singapore would bring an important toughness, and sense of perspective, to the eurozone crisis, and a reminder that the fund’s money will increasingly come from Asia.

The cost of pursuing Osama bin Laden has been immense for the United States. The two wars that followed the 9/11 attacks added significantly to the US national debt. Even more serious, the decade of preoccupation with Islamic terrorism was a distraction from other pressing challenges confronting

You can’t fault Angela Merkel on consistency. The German Chancellor maintains her determination to avoid a writedown of Greek debt, or that of other beleaguered eurozone countries, at least in the immediate future. The good news, for her, is that she has Andreas Papandreou, the Greek Prime

What have they done with President Obama?” That cry from the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman struck a chord with many this month. “What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected?” he asked in a recent column. “Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for

If President Obama loses the 2012 election, it will be because he has failed to develop anything resembling an economic policy. Two and a half years after his election, it remains his weakest link. That was brutally exposed by the showdown with the Republicans who control the House of

You can’t separate Europe’s failure to agree military action towards Libya from the failure on Friday to repair the eurozone. The European Union’s confused response on the two fronts where it now needs to make clear decisions shows the gulf opening between the interests of France and Germany, as